SAS - Input Methods

The input methods are used to read the raw data. The raw data may be from an external source or from in stream datalines. The input statement creates a variable with the name that you assign to each field. So you have to create a variable in the Input Statement. The same variable will be shown in the output of SAS Dataset. Below are different input methods available in SAS.

List Input Method

Named Input Method

Column Input Method

Formatted Input Method

The details of each input method is described as below.

List Input Method

In this method the variables are listed with the data types. The raw data is carefully analysed so that the order of the variables declared matches the data. The delimiter (usually space) should be uniform between any pair of adjacent columns. Any missing data will cause problem in the output as the result will be wrong.

Named Input Method

In this method the variables are listed with the data types. The raw data is modified to have variable names declared in front of the matching data. The delimiter (usually space) should be uniform between any pair of adjacent columns.

Column Input Method

In this method the variables are listed with the data types and width of the columns which specify the value of the single column of data. For example if an employee name contains maximum 9 characters and each employee name starts at 10th column, then the column width for employee name variable will be 10-19.

Formatted Input Method

In this method the variables are read from a fixed starting point until a space is encountered. As every variable has a fixed starting point, the number of columns between any pair of variables becomes the width of the first variable. The character '@n' is used to specify the starting column position of a variable as the nth column.